My son is three years old and born in Denmark. My daughter is two months old. I would like to know why they want to separate me from my family? What are my human rights? I haven’t seen my parents for nine years – only on the phone.
I was sent to prison in Syria, and all my teeth was broken. I was shot in the leg.
I need to know why I don’t get any answers. I get afraid every time I see a police car. I worry about whether they will deport me or what they will do with me. I need to support my children as a father, and not live separated from them.

Jeg var glad i mit hjemland, fordi jeg havde et hjem, arbejde og familie tæt på. De hjalp mig altid. Men i år 2011 startede krigen. Ikke i Damaskus, i en anden by, men vi var bekymrede. I 2012 begyndte folk at demonstrere imod regimet. Så kom bomberne. Alligevel ville jeg ikke flygte. Jeg tænkte: måske bliver det bedre. Jeg havde ingen steder at flygte hen, fordi hele min familie boede i samme by som os. Der kom jo ikke bomber hver dag. Vi ville vente.
Men den 16. december 2012, havde jeg lavet morgenmad til min familie. Bagefter, da jeg stod og vaskede op, kom der pludselig en flyvemaskine og kastede bomber. Store bomber, helt tæt på mig. Glasset i huset smadrede og hele min lejlighed ryster. Vi samlede hele familien og løb væk. Mange mennesker, meget støv. Vi løb væk fra min bolig. Jeg troede ikke vi ville være væk for altid. Jeg tænkte, det måske ville stoppe efter 2 dage, så jeg tog intet med. Kun det tøj jeg havde på. Der var ingen transport, ingen biler. Vi måtte gå. Vi gik i 3 timer. Jeg ved ikke, hvor mange kilometer. Vi gik til en anden by. Vi vidste ikke, hvor vi skulle gå hen.

Vi havde nogle bekendte, vi kunne være hos i to dage. Bagefter lejede vi et værelse i en kælder. Der var vi i to måneder, men min søn havde astma, så vi blev nødt til at finde en anden bolig. To måneder efter flyttede vi igen. Vi var i den nye bolig i syv måneder. Pludselig kom der bomber. Igen måtte vi flygte. Igen biler ingen, kun mennesker og støv. Vi måtte løbe og gå til et nyt område.
Vi kom til en ny by og var hos bekendte i to uger. Der var mange check-points i den nye by. Soldaterne ville have min mand. De sagde til min mand, at han var imod dem (Assad-regimet). De afhørte ham i mange timer, men til sidst blev han løsladt.

Der var mange forskellige oprørsgrupper. Så skete det igen, men denne gang omvendt. Min mand blev afhørt af oprørsgrupperne, og anholdt for at holde med Assad-regimet. Vi ville kun sikkerhed! Vi var ikke med nogen.
Pludselig ville soldaterne vide, hvor min søns identitetskort var. De begyndte at afhøre ham. Derefter besluttede vi at flytte fra Damaskus.
Vi rejste til Libanon i december 2013. Min mand søgte arbejde, men kunne ikke finde et. Livet i Libanon var meget dyrt, så han besluttede at tage til Europa. Mig og børnene blev i Libanon. Efter tre måneder kom han til Danmark, i februar 2014. Vi måtte blive et år i Libanon. Der havde vi det meget svært. Ingen penge. Ingen fremtid til børnene. Livet i Libanon var ikke så godt. Vi fik penge fra FN til at overleve. Vi boede i en lejlighed med mange familier. Vi havde kun et værelse. Mine børn begyndte at få mange hovedpiner. Mit ældste barn arbejdede for at få penge til os. Han var 14-15 år, og arbejdede i supermarkedet. Gik ikke i skole. Hver dag græd jeg fordi det var en meget svær periode. Jeg begyndte også at få migræne hver dag.
Bagefter kom vi til Danmark, i oktober 2014. Vi fik familiesammenføring. Men vi slapper ikke af.

Da jeg kom til Danmark, var jeg meget glad. Da jeg kom, ville jeg meget gerne lære dansk og integreres her. Fordi jeg skulle begynde et liv igen. Men da jeg kom på sprogskole, kunne jeg ikke lære. Jeg havde mange hovedpiner og mange tanker, men jeg ville virkelig gerne. Reglerne pressede os. Skulle jeg gå til praktik og arbejde, uden at kunne tale dansk? Det gik meget hurtigt. Mange krav. Når man har haft svære oplevelser, har man brug for at få tid til at lære. Det er svært!

Jeg blev færdig med sprogskolen efter et år og otte måneder, men mine børn lærer hurtigt. Jeg går på Voksen Uddannelses Center nu, i 9. klasse. Jeg har en uddannelse fra mit hjemland, men jeg skal starte forfra. Jeg vil gerne arbejde her som lærer eller pædagog, selvom reglerne er meget svære. Jeg tror, der er nogle mennesker, der tror at alle flygtninge er ”dårlige for Danmark”. Måske tror nogle mennesker, at alle flygtninge vil skade Danmark, fordi der er nogle få, der laver ballade i Danmark eller EU. Det er ikke derfor, vi kom. Vi vil bare gerne leve et komfortabelt liv, lære dansk og integreres. Vi vil bare gerne have et job og et godt liv. Men der er også mange danskere, der har hjulpet mig. Frivillige, der står parat til at hjælpe os med alt muligt, både sprog, kultur og praktiske ting. Men det er stadig meget hårdt i Danmark.
Det kræver en open mind.
Jeg skal sørge for, at mine børn og børnebørn kommer ind på en ”god vej”. De skal integreres. Vi skal lære en ny kultur at kende, men vi vil også gerne beholde vores egne traditioner.

Nogle gange synes jeg det er frustrerende. Nogle gange har jeg brug for hjælp. Jeg forstår det ikke. Jeg skal kunne tale godt dansk. Jeg vil gerne have en god uddannelse, men hvornår er det godt nok? Hvornår er jeg klar?
Jeg er uddannet lærer i mit hjemland, og jeg vil også gerne være lærer her. Ikke rengøringsassistent. Unge mennesker lærer hurtigere end mig. Hvornår er jeg klar? Det er svært at forstå systemet her. Jeg er ikke ung, men jeg siger altid ”Jeg skal, jeg skal, Jeg SKAL lære det”.
Men det er fint at det er sikkert her. Nu ved jeg mine børn er ok, og ingen tager min mand. Der er sikkerhed og fremtid. Jeg skal elske Danmark for at fortsætte.

My life before the war: I was studying and working. I was studying journalism in Damascus University. I worked in many cafeterias, and as a clerk. I was summoned to join the military, but I refused. I escaped from Syria to Egypt, where I stayed for one year. From there I went to Algeria, then to Tunisia, then to Libya.  I found a smuggler in Libya, and crossed the ocean in a small boat to Italy. From there, the smugglers put me in a small van, and took me directly to Germany. From there I went to Denmark.
My life in Denmark started with language school for 10 months. After that, I got an internship in a construction company, which manufactures greenhouses. After that I got another internship at a launderette. After I had finished my language course, I got a real job in a supermarket called Netto.
My life now is very happy. I have no problems. I am integrated and happy in a positive way. I wish to continue my studies as an auto mechanic.
On a last note, I wish that politicians could view the positive sides of refugees. At all of the people who are working, and integrating themselves in the best way possible.

Before the war, I was in the 10th grade. Life was very beautiful, without any problems. Our life was very normal before the war. During the war, our life was very stressful. I was afraid of everything. There was no safe places. Even the short 7-minute walk to school was impossible for me to walk alone. In 2014 we decided to escape from Damascus. On the 1st of March 2015, we arrived in Denmark, at Copenhagen central station. We were moved to many different refugee camps before we were granted a residence permit. We reached Aarhus in July 2015.
In Denmark I study the Danish language, and my social worker put me in high school to learn more Danish. Unfortunately I am not very good friends with the Danish language.  After that they put me I Langkjær gymnasium to study on the English course for international students. The course takes three years, and I only have one year left, so I will be graduating next year. I have become very tired of these studies. I am looking very much forward to wear the graduation hat! When I have finished this course I will go on to study psychology and criminology.

Before the war, I was studying and working. I was studying in high school, and working in a bar. I liked making ‘latte art’ on the cappuccinos. My life was acceptable before the war. I escaped from Syria in the beginning of the war, in 2013, because I feared for my life. I escaped to Malaysia, and lived there for 6 months. However, I could not find suitable work. From there I travelled to Algeria, where I stayed for 2 years. From Algeria, I went to Libya, where I found a smuggler. He took my brother and me to Italy on a small boat. From Italy, I went to Denmark.
When I arrived in Denmark, they sent me to a camp in Helsingør. Then we moved to another camp in Haderslev, in another part of the country. Then we went to Toftlund, and finally to the municipality of Nyborg. In Nyborg I studied in language school, and graduated after 9 months. After that, I found work in a supermarket called Netto, where I still work now. In the beginning, I had 30 km to work from where I lived. I had to wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning to be on time. I drove to work on my scooter.
One day I had three accidents because of the snow, and once because I hit an animal. After the last accident, they moved me to a Netto in Odense, which is closer to my home.
I wish to continue my studies to become an electrician.
I would like to send a message to the politicians, to give better opportunities to the refugees, and to stop generalizing.

In 1988, when I was 14 years old I left my school, because my father got sick, and I started to work. I was the oldest of my siblings, so I helped my father. He was the owner of our family business Kweider Sweets that had existed since 1912.
I left Syria because of the war. It was dangerous for me and for my children to stay I Syria, and that was the reason I had to leave.

On the first of march 2015, which is also my birth day, I arrived together with my family in Denmark. We lived in the asylum camp and after three months we got residence permit. I decided to move to Aarhus, because it is a city of trade, and in Aarhus I decided to do business with someone that I knew in Aarhus. This person I knew from many years ago. We used to send containers of Syrian sweets from my fathers shop to retailers in Denmark. It was my fathers idea to start exporting sweets, and we had been doing that since 1969.
One of the best thing in Denmark is that a person gets economical help so that no one needs to ask for money and so that one can depend on himself and start a new business on his own.

Before I opened my own shop, I worked at a bakery shop as an intern, and they gave me a very good recommendation. For example they said that I was very good at administrating the shop. I had this experience because I participated in many events in Europe and America before. From these events I also knew many good business men, and some of them also helped me to start my small business. I’m actually a little disappointed that the Job center in the municipality were not interested in helping me to start my business, for example to know the laws and my rights and about the possibilities for economical help for new businesses.

Some people asked me why I opened my shop here in this neighborhood, and why not in a neighborhood where many Arabs live. The answer is that I want to thank the Danes, because they helped me – to give something beautiful back. And I am also happy to now pay tax as a thank.
My business is now a success, and I hope that in the future I can open more shops with my sweets in different cities.
I wish the politicians would look at refugees with a good point of view. We just came here to find peace and a safe place to build our future and our kids’ future.

Svenska: Det soliga livet, jag heter Safaa och har bott här i 1 år och 10 månader. Jag är 46 år gammal och kommer från Syrien. Jag ritade en viktig berättelse.

A Million Stories Sweden: Nizar Keblawi, Nina Olsson, Sara Sarabi, Malin Gillberg, Daniel Björklund, Mats Nordström.

A Million Stories Sweden volunteers: Fariborz Ghadir, Mohamad Mohsin, Yazan Saad, Tarek Aloudallah, Dalia Saleem, Yara Ali, Ahmad Younes, Chaimae Hamri.

In association with

Before the war I lived in Damascus and for 7 years I had a girlfriend who was studying fine arts at the University, and she was so good at drawing and would draw me many times over the years.   She was also a skilled stonemason and would make sculptures that imitated human beings. I was a student of psychology at the time, and so we met in Damascus on the streets first and later we had coffee, smoked water pipe and talked and talked; she was open-minded and such a free spirit. My girlfriend was killed in 2011 by shrapnel from a bomb dropped by the government, and my life just fell apart and I became so sad and angry. I was already a poet, but from this moment my poems became very critical of Assad and I canalized my deep hatred towards his regime through my poetry and published it in books, and eventually I began to receive phone calls from henchmen of the regime who threatened to severely beat me up. But I did not care about them, because when I lost my girlfriend my life no longer had value. They knew that my poetry had been published.

After 10 days receiving dead threats over the phone, I decided to flee with a fake ID in a taxi to Lebanon: There were checkpoints for every 300-400 metres and as a result it took several hours to reach Beirut where I stayed in the apartment of a friend; there are good people in Beirut. I earned some money by doing small jobs, often as a painter.

After 2 years, I left for Jordan where I, however, was detained for 3 days at the airport, because the authorities there claimed that I had not right to enter the country, because I did not know anybody there. I told them that they could send me to all other countries than Syria and they finally sent me to Egypt, where I worked for a couple of months. But when el-Sisi was elected president in 2013, it was no longer possible to live in the country without a residence permit as a Syrian citizen, and so I went back to Lebanon, where my family now also lived, and I ended up there for some months.

At this point there was a French woman, whom I had gotten to know over the internet, who persuaded me to go to Europe. And so I took a flight to Algeria and from there a bus to Tunisia from where I headed to Libya with the smugglers: It was an extremely dangerous journey and we both walked, ran and drove in car, and I was kicked and beaten several times, because I answered back the smugglers, as I could not tolerate how they were behaving.

From Libya I boarded a fishing boat together with 350 persons in the middle of the night, and we spend the day on the sea until we reached the port of Napoli. We did not have any water on the boat and it was very hot to sit in the sun. I had paid the smugglers 1.500 dollars to go to Italy, and I often think of all the money they must have made on me and the other ones in the boat, and also about how scared I was while we were out on the sea.
When we reached the shore of Napoli, a huge warship met us at sea, and all 350 persons from our fishing boat were transported in smaller boats to the warship, where we stayed for 2 days and got food and water. And after that we got ashore and could finally wash ourselves at the place where we were held by the police. My journey from Lebanon to Italy had at that point lasted for a month.

I ended up talking with a woman from the authorities who advised refugees, and even though she was supposed to drive me back to the police she drove me to the train station, where I took the train to Milan and spent some days. Together with 3 other refugees, I arranged that we would take a cap to Denmark, and we each paid 750 euros to the driver. But we did not entirely trust the driver, and we all agreed that we should be awake by turns, so that we could keep track of where he was taking us, and we also had a GPS: We were afraid that he would drive us to some strange place, beat us up and take our money. But he was actually a really good man and as we had agreed, he took us to the Central Station in Copenhagen.

From the Central Station I took the train myself to Sandholmlejren and from there I was sent to the asylum centre Sommersted, where I spent 6 months and got my permanent residence permit. At my interview I told the authorities that I wanted to live in Copenhagen, where I first lived at a hotel and then later in a temporary housing for a few months before I got my own apartment.

But at this point in my story something else also happened, because when I arrived to Denmark I began to speak with a female friend on messenger. And she came here in 2015, and we got married the same day and we now have 2 children; a son and a daughter.

I have had several jobs since I arrived: I have worked as a painter and a serviceman, and tomorrow I will start a new job as a driver in a transport company, where I am going to deliver newspapers and other things. During my weekends I often go to another housing facility in Copenhagen, where they have a billiard table, and I play and talk with friends, as a did in Syria.

I am grateful to be in Denmark and to have gotten the opportunities to start a new life: There are a lot of very nice people around me here. But I also feel the we, the refugees, are being put under pressure constantly, because they change the rules regarding what we as refugees are allowed to do and not to do, and what we are forced to do. And it is very stressful.

One example of the stress that I am going through right now is related to our accommodation, because living with 2 small children in a small apartment is a huge challenge. I have talked with the “kommune”, because we very much would like a bigger apartment, but it seems as though it is going to be quite a difficult task.

Svenska: Jag heter Layan, kommer från Syrien och har bott i Sverige i 1 år. Jag är 8 år gammal.

A Million Stories Sweden: Nizar Keblawi, Nina Olsson, Sara Sarabi, Malin Gillberg, Daniel Björklund, Mats Nordström.

A Million Stories Sweden volunteers: Fariborz Ghadir, Mohamad Mohsin, Yazan Saad, Tarek Aloudallah, Dalia Saleem, Yara Ali, Ahmad Younes, Chaimae Hamri.

In association with